As some government backbenchers voice fears of an electoral rout over power policy, Cabinet ministers are now touting the merits of a new “NEG-plus” package.

A clear attempt to appease and win the support of its internal opponents, the “NEG-plus” will reportedly add the consumer watchdog’s report to the National Energy Guarantee. Given a key recommendation from the ACCC was for the government to underwrite new dispatchable power generation, it is thought this new NEG is about cutting power costs.

Before this news materialised, Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly caught up with Warren Moore.

He maintains that the NEG, in its original form, will lead to more power bill pain.

“The main concern is about the issue of price,” he tells Warren.

“The Australian energy market regulator, even they admitted that the lowest cost generation that we have at the moment is our existing coal-fired power generators. It’s quite simple.”

“If you artificially force-feed through some legislative mechanism with penalties, if you force-feed intermittent renewables into the grid and you displace that lower cost production from coal-fired power stations, prices can only go one way. That’s up.”

Tiring of renewable energy evangelism and opposition to coal on ideological grounds, Kelly is calling for the subsidies around renewables to be revoked.

“This year through federal government subsidies, there is something like $3.6 billion that gets directly added onto consumers’ electricity bills to pay for the subsidies of renewable energy targets.